For decades, the term jukebox was synonymous with a housing for a phonograph player and a collection of musical recordings stored in the housing as a plurality of records. These jukeboxes were usually large and were mainly located in establishments like bars and restaurants. Eventually, the records in jukeboxes were replaced with compact discs (CDs). Although compact discs increased the sound quality of conventional jukeboxes, routinely updating conventional jukeboxes was a lengthy and cumbersome task.
Updating conventional jukeboxes required a significant investment of time and money. Routemen were required to travel to each jukebox location to replace outdated recordings with up-to-date CDs or records. A new physical copy of each disc was needed for every location and many unneeded copies of the outdated recordings remained after removal from the jukebox. New ways to store and update musical recordings on jukeboxes were needed to eliminate or reduce this laborious and expensive update procedure.
The influx of digital music provided an opportunity to change the design and operation of conventional jukeboxes. As suggested in U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,302, conventional jukeboxes could be replaced with a network of computer jukeboxes capable of storing digital music in memory and updating the music contained on the jukebox over a network connection. Computer jukeboxes reduced the necessity of routemen to update jukeboxes manually. The computer jukeboxes provided many advantages beyond the saved expense in updating. A plurality of jukeboxes could now be controlled via a central management center, allowing tasks such as royalty accounting to be performed centrally. Digital music has become increasingly popular, and compression technologies decreased the necessary file size, allowing any computer system with speakers to become a jukebox. A large market was created for digital jukeboxes, including personal jukeboxes in homes.
With most digital jukebox systems, a user can scroll through alphabetical song listings in order to select a song. Additionally, some digital jukebox systems allow a user to type in the first few letters of a song title or artist name in order to search more rapidly when the user knows a particular song that he wants to hear. These methods require, however, that either the user know a particular song title in advance or that the user must spend a significant amount of time to search for a desired song.
These methods can be inconvenient. For example, the user may not know the exact song title or artist name for newly released songs. Thus, the user would have to scroll through an entire listing of available songs, perhaps in a given musical genre, in order to find the desired song.
Accordingly, there is a desire for a more flexible system and method for providing efficient song selection on networked jukeboxes where a user can quickly find popular songs. A central system for managing the jukeboxes and handling song selections is also desired.